The Green Room

Lynn Keating from Calgary, AB writes:

For several years now, we have filled up our hybrid vehicles with fuel that contains ethanol, thinking this was the environmentally correct action.  However, lately I have been reading articles indicating this may not be so. What is your position on this controversial topic?

Ryan Kadowaki, Climate Change Administrator for the David Suzuki Foundation responds:

While our organization has not been directly involved with the biofuels issue, I would say that we foresee a niche market for these fuels. The large-scale use of biofuels, though, is problematic.

Biofuels are not capable of replacing oil entirely, and there is the very real concern about using farmland to supply fuel for vehicles rather than growing food for human consumption. For biodiesel, we absolutely support its production when the fuel source is recycled cooking fat (i.e. deep fryer grease), as this constitutes reusing a "waste" product (though of course there would be other potential uses for it).

For ethanol, we do favour lignocellulosic ethanol (made from straw, corn husks, forest residue, etc.) because it does not require arable land to produce and it also has a much higher net energy (although this may have negative consequences for soil nutrient levels). In terms of the net-carbon benefits of using corn-based ethanol, there is still considerable debate on this issue, but as of yet, the modest to non-existent greenhouse gas benefits do not appear to outweigh the issue of arable land use.

Additional insight on this issue can be found in a Science Matters article by Dr. Suzuki on September 14, 2007, "Biofuels not necessarily all that green" .